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The disturbing thing about this paper to me - flashy though it may be - is what they left out rather than what they kept in. OpenAI appears to only be thinking

• macawfish 9y ago
  I took a class Sociology class in college called "Killing". Not a single time did we once ever talk about "authoritative" or "legitimate" killings of any sort. It turned out that this class was specifically meant for 'Criminal Justice' majors, people who were going on to be police officers and prosecutors. We didn't ever talk about war, the death penalty, genocide, eugenics, abortion, differential reproductive success, famine, none of it. The whole class was about homicide. I was disturbed and appalled.
  • dabbledash 9y ago
    One of these things is not like the others...
  • cryoshon 9y ago
    there are many experiences like this. the worst part: those people will leave the class thinking they have the whole story. the part you mention won't ever enter their mind-- it isn't under the heading of "killing" because "killing" only happens to the groups covered in class.
  • mcguire 9y ago
    When was this? Back when I was an undergrad, I took one sociology class (on a different topic) and the faculty seemed especially sensitive about that sort of manipulation. I can't find a reference at the moment, but it had something to do with the CIA consulting with academics about their activities in South America in the 70s. This was in 1987 at UT Austin.
    • macawfish 9y ago
      It was in 2010 at the University of Minnesota. I actually got a degree in sociology, so I know from experience that the rest of the department was much more critically engaged. In my other classes, we were doing postcolonial studies of globalization, studying race/class/gender and reading Paulo Friere, Marx, etc. It was all solid. But this "Killing" class is where I discovered that the department was segregated into distinct "tracks". They had one for general sociological studies, and one for people who were going on to be police officers and lawyers: the "criminal justice" track. This "Killing" class was part of the criminal justice track. Later on, I took a class in CSCL (cultural studies and comparitive literature) called "Aliens" and found myself wishing I'd discovered CSCL sooner.
• kypro 9y ago
  > I'm more concerned about Google using AI to mine every conversation I've ever had or my browsing history to classify me as a dissiden before I apply for a visa to travel to China or the United States, or as a deadbeat before I apply for a bank loan, or sick before I apply for insurance, or as unrehabilitatable before I apply for parole. I'm quite paranoid about this, yet whenever I speak to people about it either people don't care, or already accept it's happening and inevitable. I think part of the problem is many of us already feel we've lost the battle for privacy. Although, I'm not sure we ever seriously attempted to fight for it. Every street in cities in the UK is full CCTV cameras. The underground and buses track where you travel. Our internet is monitored and logged. This isn't a future problem that will manifest from greed and advances in AI, it's something we all accept and deal with today. In fact, a lot of people will say to this, "if you don't do anything wrong you've got nothing to hide". They welcome it.
  • cryptoz 9y ago
    > In fact, a lot of people will say to this, "if you don't do anything wrong you've got nothing to hide". They welcome it. Weird that those people want their poops and bedtime routines live on TV globally. Having something private is not bad and anyone who thinks so hasn't taken a second to think about it. I think the extra dangerous thing here is propaganda along with the AI to convince everyone it is okay, and I'd say that is already happening, as your comment describes. Aside from electing responsible people to government in order to pass regulations, what can a regular person do to change the profit incentives at scale of the companies who are building the mass surveillance systems? It seems a dire and impossible situation.
    • confounded 9y ago
      > Aside from electing responsible people to government in order to pass regulations, what can a regular person do to change the profit incentives at scale of the companies who are building the mass surveillance systems? It seems a dire and impossible situation. There's no need to be so fatalistic. The EU is about to enact GDPR; a huge privacy preserving peice of legislation. It seems like the large technology companies are going to give the same protections globally (verification is too much fuss). This is a huge win, and US citizens get it for 'free'. Here are some ideas for more productive things than despairing on Hacker News: - Vote with your neurons. Stop using services that you find objectionable, even if you enjoy them. - Stay abreast of issues via organizations like the EFF, EPIC and the FSF in the US; ORG, Privacy International and FSFE in the UK, etc. Send them your cold hard cash. - Speak to your representatives, and give them your angle. If they're being paid by the organizations you're worried about, tell them politely what you think of this. - Socially, as charmingly as possible, let people know what you think about surveillance if it comes up. It's a fun one if framed correctly, as it doesn't divide down left/right lines, and no-one likes to sound authoritarian. Offer help and expertise to people who are wishing to make privacy preserving changes (e.g. move off gmail, set up a pseudonym, configure a VPN, etc.)
• letlambda 9y ago
  How is your concern different than what they are calling political security (~1/3 of the paper)? >Political security. The use of AI to automate tasks involved in surveillance (e.g. analysing mass-collected data), persuasion (e.g. creating targeted propaganda), and deception (e.g. manipulating videos) may expand threats associated with privacy invasion and social manipulation. We also expect novel attacks that take advantage of an improved capacity to analyse human behaviors, moods, and beliefs on the basis of available data. These concerns are most significant in the context of authoritarian states, but may also undermine the ability of democracies to sustain truthful public debates.
  • Mizza 9y ago
    I guess it's the difference between what they're calling "authoritarian states", the mustache-twirling dictators of the 20th century targeting their political opponents (a fetish in papers like this), and the _new_ form of corporate-driven mass surveillance and resulting fascism that is emerging. There is no need for an evil central power targeting threats to itself, but instead we have seen/are seeing the rise pervasive blanket surveillance and classification of _all_ people in a society, even non-political actors, from many different for-profit companies. The is combined with a new type of society that is entirely dependent on corporate services for almost all functions in life (food, travel, healthcare, communications, travel, work, housing, etc). It's a recipe for disaster. This kind of state is a _new thing_^tm and we have to be aware of it. We're the ones who are going to be oppressed by it, not just the people living under the Saddam Husseins of the world.
    • ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
      You are right on. To confine this worry to 'authoritarian states' is beyond naive. Could an A.I. program like you are discussing have prevented the school shooting in Florida by alerting the police of the shooter's state of mind and intentions? If an A.I. could save kids, is there any way we would not be demanding the A.I. protector be installed on every computer and mobile device today? It would be so easy to see how we would voluntarily give up power to this A.I. protector.
• katzgrau 9y ago
  I'm more concerned that AI will become a modern deity in that it's considered science and ought not to be questioned. Things like predictions of academmic success, criminal behavior, etc that impact the rights of individuals.
  • maze-le 9y ago
    Hey, why would you want to think for yourself, when you have a computer do it for you? A lot of people unfamiliar with Machine Learning are already showing these tendencies. I am by no means an expert in the field, only a interested amateur, but I know about the limitations and I think its important that people are taught the basics of ML. More people should view ML/AI as "a complex process minimizing an multivariable error function over a multivariable input field", instead of a "computer that thinks". This way, more of these applications of it might be questioned. I think, the only way to stop these tendencies is to teach the fundamental basics and limitations of ML in High School. It might be possible, you don't even have to introduce tensor algebra or even vector spaces to accomplish it at this stage of education.
    • cr0sh 9y ago
      > More people should view ML/AI as "a complex process minimizing an multivariable error function over a multivariable input field" I don't know where you're from, but a statement like that here in the United States would surely get you an ass-kicking. Ok - a bit of hyperbole there, but not far from it; most people would simply hear "wah-wah-wah-wah" and have no clue what you were talking about; others would fall asleep. Could you teach high schoolers what "minimization" is, and what it means to "minimize" a "multivariable error function over a multivariable input field"? Maybe some of them, but even there I'd bet the majority won't get it, and those that do will only have it for the time it takes to pass a test, then promptly forget about it. Honestly, there are plenty of other subjects I'd rather see taught in high school (and earlier) to kids, the greatest being critical thinking methods and how to question how you know what you know. Perhaps along with philosophy (general and "of mind"), and a few other similar subjects. I doubt we'll ever see this any time soon, though, as such knowledge would undermine much of the status-quo, particularly religion.
• tyrex2017 9y ago
  i dont share your concerns at all. my daily feelings and activities wouldnt change, whether facebook and google know about them or not. Contrast that to being killed by a drone. privacy concerns is rather an interesting intellectual problem, and not a real one. if it was a real problem, people would change their use of those tools but they dont. you can argue that loss of privacy allows corporations to manipulate us, but i see only trivial effects. look at how people vote and buy. i see more diversity and conclude less manipulation.
  • tjr225 9y ago
    > privacy concerns is rather an interesting intellectual problem, and not a real one. if it was a real problem, people would change their use of those tools but they don't. It is a real problem and plenty of people do change their use of their tools.
    • tyrex2017 9y ago
      i dont believe so. can you give an example? duck duck go, for example, has 0.3% market share. you need to look at the typical john and mary on the street.
      • tjr225 9y ago
        I may have been incorrect to use the word 'plenty.' So let me rephrase: people do change their use of those tools. I don't see how those people being insignificant statistically makes a problem any less real.
        • tyrex2017 9y ago
          well you didnt say majority so the word plenty is ok actually i agree that it is a real problem for lets say millions of people. but what counts is the majority opinion for me. there are all kinds of contrary (!) opinions among small subgroups of the population, and thus it isnt possible to adjust wide-ranging policies to those opinions
  • 9y ago
• Pxtl 9y ago
  At least Google and FB are big-enough targets that operate out in the open that they can be crushed by governments if they throw their weight around too much. The things that scare me are actors that don't have flashy names. The invisible marketing companies funded by lobbyists. Astroturfers. Russian propagandists.
• gone35 9y ago
  I am far, far less worried about an assassin's drones using AI to find a politician in a crowd than I am about Facebook using pictures of me that other people have posted and tagged me in, so that my face is used to track my movements, and the movements of every other human on the planet, everywhere we go, and selling that information to everybody who wants a copy, and giving it away at the request of the local police. Definitely not a lawyer but, as I understand it, depending on jurisdiction and context, some social media postings may be considered "public" information volunteered without "reasonable expectation of privacy" ---in which case, awfully enough, anything goes... Again, not a lawyer; but I wonder if there should be a right to clear-language, mandatory warnings ---like in cigarrettes--- whenever you are about to post something that will not enjoy "reasonable expectation of privacy" (and hence could be sold or used against you in the future, etc.)..
• YaxelPerez 9y ago
  I found out Google has been logging my location since I got an Android in 2014. You can see what Google has on you here: https://www.google.com/maps/timeline https://www.google.com/maps/timeline My guess is normal people don't know or care enough to turn it off.
• lcalculus 9y ago
  I've always found the group's name amusing.. " Open " AI is disconnected from observed reality since eons. Intelligence always has information asymmetry of some kind.
• at-fates-hands 9y ago
  >> The disturbing thing about this paper to me - flashy though it may be - is what they left out rather than what they kept in. I agree 100% I would feel a lot more comfortable if we had an objective think tank like organization doing the research instead of the actual companies who are developing AI and have a vested financial interest in steering the public in the direction they want in order to lower people's concerns. I've had concerns about this for a long time. Many people simply discounted me as a conspiracy buff when I brought up the dangers of AI. Now? Not so much.
• lern_too_spel 9y ago
  Who are the "surveillance advertising corporations who are supporting OpenAI?" https://openai.com/about/#sponsors https://openai.com/about/#sponsors